Putting in my First Blueberry Plants

On Tuesday the temperature reached 93 degrees, a new record in our area for April 28th. By Wednesday evening a frost warning circulated! Ah, New England. This morning it is 40 degrees, no frost, but I had brought my little tomato plants back in the house just in case.
A few days ago four blueberry (not wild blues) plants arrived. Yesterday, after digging the first hole, I poured water into it just to check the drainage. That hole held water like a pail! Nice. So today I'll be digging a trench rather than four separate holes for the blueberry plants. That way I can fill the trench with organic material and better soil. Good luck to me.

The nursery that sent the blueberry plants included a booklet of how-to instructions. Listed below are their -

RULES FOR CONTAINER GROWING

1. Containers may be plastic, wood, metal, or clay. Your container must provide drainage. You cannot have water sitting in the bottom so the root system lies in a pool of water all the time. To provide drainage, drill or punch holes in the container, then put a couple of inches of broken crockery, gravel, marble chips or comparable material in the bottom.

2. Use a container big enough not to crowd roots. Trees require containers about 24 inches across, whether round, square, or rectangular, and as deep as your knee. For grapes and berries, use a container to one-half the tree size. A good mixture of soil for container growing is 1/3 sand, 1/3 peat moss, and 1/3 loose planting soil.

3. Feed your plant(s) with a liquid fertilizer once a month. Water them during growing seasons frequently enough to keep the soil slightly damp, not moist, to the touch.

Begin Easy

Here's a short, easy, information video about container gardening. Spring is the time to begin. Go ahead, jump in.

Ah, gardening...

Yesterday my husband found an article about me on the internet. I just had to post it here. Click on the pictures to see the whole message.

The Innocent for the Guilty

Chapters 4 and 5 of Revelation describe in symbol the throne room of The Creator. Today we commemorate this portion of the scene.

Then I looked and I heard, around the throne and the living creatures and the elders, the voice of many angels, numbering myriads of myriads and thousands of thousands, saying with a loud voice, "Worthy is the Lamb who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing!" And I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea, and all therein, saying, "To him who sits upon the throne and to the Lamb be blessing and honor and glory and might for ever and ever!"

Peace and Love.

Spring 2009

Finally Virus #OMG, the dreaded virus from hell, has drained all the mucous out of New England - again. Last year it stormed the area in January, oozed cross country to the Northwest, bumped into the moist Pacific air, sneezed itself around, engaged in nose to nose combat back through the Midwest, and coughed up a surprise attack here in March this year. Who knew those little bits of RNA could or would organize into mighty armies attacking young, old, and all ages in between?

Yesterday I took a two-tissue, no-cough drive to NH. Weeks have passed since I've seen my little girls. While Mom and Dad went out on a dinner date, they twirled in dresses I'd brought from a local consignment shop, went swinging in the back yard, played with Summer their black lab, ate supper, and colored eggs. We talked about planting while they tried on their new Dora gardening gloves. Already single pumpkin and watermelon seedlings are waiting to be transplanted.

Meanwhile when possible we've been cutting, splitting, hauling, and stacking wood. Check this out...nice, huh?

The Wizard of ID

Click on the cartoon to enlarge the pictures so you can view the whole message.
Busy here fighting viruses and cleaning up many downed limbs and trees. We should have fire wood for several winters.
Happy Spring.

The Shack

Last Christmas my sister sent a 2007 novel by William P. Young entitled, The Shack. Fabulous book. Here are a few statements that God makes in his conversations with the main character Mack.

"Creation has been taken down a very different path than we desired. In your world the value of the individual is constantly weighed against the survival of the system, whether political, economic, social, or religious--any system actually. First one person, and then a few, and finally even many are easily sacrificed for the good and ongoing existence of the system. In one form or another this lies behind every struggle for power, every prejudice, every war, and every abuse of relationship. The 'will to power and independence' has become so ubiquitous that it is now considered normal."

"You humans, so little in your our eyes. You are truly blind to your own place in the Creation. Having chosen the ravaged path of independence, you don't even comprehend that you are dragging the entire Creation along with you." "So very sad, but it won't be this way forever."

"Nobody knows what horrors I have saved the world from 'cuz people can't see what never happened. All evil flows from independence, and independence is your choice. If I were to simply revoke all the choices of independence, the world as you know it would cease to exist and love would have no meaning. This world is not a playground where I keep all my children free from evil. Evil is the chaos of this age that you brought to me, but it will not have the final say. Now it touches everyone that I love, those who follow me and those who don't. If I take away the consequences of people's choices, I destroy the possibility of love. Love that is forced is no love at all."

"My purposes are always and only an expression of love. I purpose to work life out of death, to bring freedom out of brokenness and turn darkness into light. What you see is chaos, I see as a fractal. All things must unfold, even though it puts all those I love in the midst of a world of horrible tragedies--even the one closest to me." "Everything's about him, you know. One day you folk will understand what he gave up. There are just no words."

"You see broken humans center their lives around things that seem good to them, but that will neither fill them nor free them. They are addicted to power, or the illusion of security that power offers. When a disaster happens, those same people will turn against the false powers they trusted. In their disappointment, they either become softened toward me or they become bolder in their independence. If you could only see how all of this ends and what we will achieve without the violation of one human will--then you would understand. One day you will."